


I'm Sure We'll All Miss Her So

by ms_cris



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Gen, Mother's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 13:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18801355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ms_cris/pseuds/ms_cris
Summary: Teaser: “This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened.”If she was going to run from that life, she wasn’t going to do it half-assed. Alice Smith was and always will be a ride or die girl. Only she’s out to ride or die for herself now.





	I'm Sure We'll All Miss Her So

**ten.**

Hal put an engagement ring on Alice's finger a week after they graduate college, just as she'd told him to. 

Days later Alice is celebrating the end of an era, or so her tight-knit group of college girlfriends has termed it. One last hurrah before they scatter in different directions. The night started with too much beer and a lot dancing on the not-a-dance-floor space of the off-campus bar they’d frequented these past few years, but as the night mellows things settle down to exploring the ladies’ growing sense of nostalgia along with their hopes and fears for the future.

“You’re high school sweethearts. Aren’t you at least a little curious about something… ?” Shelly arches her brow towards Alice letting her expression carry her unfinished question. 

“I’ve dated other boys.” Alice replies, clipped. “Wasn’t for me.” 

Shelly waits to hear more, but Alice won’t indulge her curiosity. These women, they wouldn’t understand. They think this cheap college bar is a dive. They would never set foot in a place like the Whyte Wyrm. None of them have ever even seen Alice’s tattoo, and they probably couldn’t imagine fierce, but prim Alice Smith a pregnant teen in leather and bold make-up. Alice likes that about them. They know nothing about the Southside, the Serpents, or Snake Dances. They don’t know that Alice, never even suspected her.

“Hal is for me,” Alice confirms as she tries not to think about the way dark eyes sometimes still haunt her. Hal is the one who stood with her in the end.

“What about your career?” Roslyn breaks in. “You’ve got chops, Alice. Professor Harris wants to connect you with his contacts at the Times.” 

Roslyn is such a feminist. Alice loves her bluntness, but she just can’t imagine herself in a city like New York. Her mind literally goes blank at the thought, like New York is Mars rather than a city a few hours away. Reaching enough velocity to attend Carson College was more than Alice ever expected to happen in her life. 

“I’ve always wanted a family, and the Cooper family owns the paper in Riverdale. Why would we settle anywhere else?” 

**nine.**

Mrs. Cooper hates Alice. The woman is such a cliche. All passive-aggressive slights and cold looks of disapproval that her son is marrying _this_ girl from the wrong side of the tracks. 

Her current tirade is on the way Alice’s lack of a proper family is ruining the wedding. How can they not have a father-daughter dance? She and Hal can’t have a mother-son moment now. That would just highlight the glaring absence. What will the guests say? And on and on and on.

Alice stalks out of the wedding planner's office, and turns to Hal to command, “We’re eloping. This weekend.”

Hal grins at his gorgeous, firebrand fiancee. He loves this Alice, take-no-prisoners Alice. Hal wants to grab her and kiss her. He wants to thank her for not putting up with his horrid mother and her obsession with appearances, but Alice is already strolling past him without a backwards glance. She just expects him to trail after her, hardly seems to need his agreement. 

And he does. And she doesn’t. 

The charming snapshot she includes with the wedding announcement says everything. They look perfect: young, in love, and too impatient to wait for a long planning process. An idyllic illustration to punctuate the high school sweethearts are getting married storyline, just lovely. 

**eight.**

Pauline Cooper is beautiful, so beautiful. When the nurse presses her minutes-old daughter to Alice's chest, Alice tears up and promises herself that her daughter will never know anything like the way Alice grew up. She will never feel alone. She will never feel scared. She will never feel unloved. Never. 

Hal takes her hand and his voice is full of awe, “We have a daughter.” 

Alice smiles up at her husband, and she knows that they must look a like a postcard picture of a family. Mother, Father, and now Baby. Alice feels something like warmth towards Hal, and she draws her hand out of his.

Alice peers down at her sweet daughter mesmerized by how tiny and precious and just beautiful she is. 

Alice will be a fierce mother, a protective mother. She isn’t going to let this baby go _ever_.

**seven.**

Alice walks into the funeral parlor in a tasteful black dress, her eyes dry. She hasn’t seen her mother since before she left for the Sister’s of Quiet Mercy, but when her Aunt Brenda called her to let her know that Alice's mother had passed Alice knew she needed to pay her respects.

Hal wanted to come, but Alice told him not to bother. She wouldn’t be there long and she didn’t need him to tag-along on this brief appearance. 

Penny sneers at Alice as she saunters up to the casket bypassing the others in the room. Alice can hear furious whispering buzzing behind her back and furious not-whispering coming from Penny. 

“Traitor.” “Bitch.” “She has a nerve.” “I was there.” “I cleaned up her mess.” 

Alice just ignores her younger sister. Penny would do what she would do, and if she wanted to create a scene then no one could stop her. Smith women were like that, hard to hold back in a fight. 

Alice cooly examines their mother lying there smaller and more peaceful than she ever was a day in her life, and she doesn’t know what to do to now that she’s there. The Smith's never had any kind of religious affiliation, not a day of Sunday school. Alice now attends a picturesque, non-denominational with Hal for Polly’s sake but that's mostly on the holidays. Alice isn’t sure what she believes: would her mother hear her? or is this all just a show for those left behind? Alice quirks a wry smile at the thought.

“You didn’t hear me when you were alive.” She sighs. “I don’t know why you’d start listening now.” 

Alice places a soft kiss on her mother’s forehead, more because Alice now knows a little better how hard being a mother is than for anything her mother ever did for her, and she leaves deciding that like her mother: her life isn’t here with these people anymore.

**six.**

Mary Andrews waddles her way through Alice’s pristine kitchen with a dozen homemade peanut butter cookies plated on a cheery red and green plaid dish. Mary is Alice’s neighbor now. She, Mary Andrews, to Alice’s consternation has stopped by for a warm welcome to the neighborhood chat over tea and cookies. 

“Polly was born in the dead of winter. Some women say surviving the summer is tough, but all this ice is dangerous.”

“Mm.” Mary agrees with a nod, as she perches herself at the island. “I’m more tired than worried about anything like icy sidewalks. But, I don’t know if that’s more from this little boy or law school.” 

“I was so nervous with my first.” Truthfully, she’s nervous with her second but Alice’s not talking about that yet. “I must have read _What To Expect_ cover-to-cover. I wanted to make sure everything was right.” 

“I never pictured you as a bookworm, Alice.” Mary says with a half-smile. “But, I guess, everyone changes after high school.”

Mary tries to make the last remark light, but something about the way she says it seems almost wistful. Alice isn’t certain she wants to tease out the underlying depths of the likes of Mary Andrews, so she deflects away from talk about high school.

“I just like to do my research.”

“That makes sense. I just talk any of those questions over with my Mom, or my sisters, or my aunts. They have enough opinions to fill a tome themselves.” 

Alice smiles coolly, trying not to hear her mother-in-law’s harangues about that girl’s lack of a proper family. “Do you think you’ll have your mother visit after the baby’s born to help or are you staying home yourself?” 

Mary shrugs. “Fred wants me to take some time off, but I just want to get out of law school. I’m thinking of hiring someone, just part-time.”

“That’s smart.” Alice affirms. “Polly does half-days at Mrs. Bee’s. That way I can do my writing at the Register and get dinner on the table.”

“Fred’s a better cook than me.” Mary gives a wane smile, then turns to dig inside her purse. “I have to get going — speaking of dinner — but I wanted to drop this off with you too.” 

She hands Alice a baby blue invitation embossed with a sleek A and weight by formal cardstock. Suddenly, Alice feels like a fifth grader again watching Sierra carefully hand out invites at lunch skipping right past the Southside trash like herself. Her sense of gratitude shocks her, and Alice rushes to cover how much she needs gestures like Mary’s after so many years in suburban isolation.

“How cute!” The hard, mean girl smirk comes easily to her, like an old friend, belying her words. “I’ll definitely check my calendar.” 

**five.**

How does anyone live like this? How can you split yourself in two, in three and have your heart forever walk away from you? How?

Alice cradles her newborn daughter, hoarding these pre-dawn moments as her tiny precious baby slumbers against her chest. Most parents dread the grind of a newborn, the intense sleep deprivation and unpredictability. Alice — doesn’t love it, but she loves the closeness. Betty’s need for her is so sharp, so real.

A mother births her children in hope and pain, then every day after their life is a move towards independence. For now, her daughter needs her. For now, she’s in her arms.

Alice would easily trade many more hours of sleep to be able to always know her children were so secure.

**four.**

Alice breezes past him like he’s no one, but the tight look on Gladys’ face makes clear that nothing has been forgotten about Alice and F.P.’s sorted history.

Sometimes Alice wonders what her life would’ve been like if she’d just left Riverdale. Sometimes she sees herself as a well-heeled foreign correspondent chasing the next expose. Sometimes she pictures herself a rolling stone bouncing from place-to-place refusing to set down roots. Rarely but every so often she allows herself to think of herself as the single mother of a little boy. What would life feel like if you didn’t have all your worst mistakes thrown at you again and again?

Alice takes Betty’s hand and declares, “Why don’t we look for your cubby, honey!”

The Cooper family marches in the direction of the row of cubbies examining the labels for the correct name. Hal looks like he wants to say something, but the sharp look Alice shoots him withers any thoughts of him having words. They’re here to be normal, not a spectacle. They’re here to see Betty’s classroom and make sure their five-year-old feels safe, secure, and ready to start school. They did not need a repeat of anything like what happened at Polly’s Kindergarten Open House. 

Hal definitely needed to shut his trap. He’d done enough!

F.P., for his part, looks right through her too. He never needed to be told things that were obvious facts of life. Surprisingly, he and his dark haired little boy are looking over the classroom library.

Of course, that’s where Betty wants to head after locating both her cubby and her desk. Her daughter is a true bookworm. 

“Alice.”

“F.P.”

Alice swears that her attention was only turned to the dark-haired man in front of her for a moment, but apparently that one moment was enough. Her heart freezes in her chest when she sees Betty and F.P’s boy snuggled sweetly together on the reading rug sharing a book between them. Blindly, Alice snatches Betty up and starts scolding her barely knowing what words are coming out of her mouth.

“We’re leaving now. We can’t spend all day here!”

Hurt tears spring to Betty’s eyes and she apologizes to her mother, but that only confirms Alice’s panic. Jones men hurt Smith women.

Alice would be on the principal’s doorstep first thing tomorrow and demand that Betty be switched into a different class. She’d be damned if she had sacrificed all that she had cutting off bit and pieces of herself to fit into this beautiful, comfortable life only to have her daughter walk straight down the same path in life.

**three.**

Alice has read many, highly-recommended parenting books written by experts, so she knows that parents should talk openly about sex. You should have not just a or the talk, but many talks throughout childhood with age-appropriate information imparted calmly by the parent to the child. You should name the body parts with their real names.

Alice herself never had such talks or even the talk. She can’t honestly remember when she learned about sex, but she would bet a million bucks that the phrase “too soon, too young” would best capture her sexual education. Nothing ever happened to her in her childhood, not like some other girls she knew, but no one was particularly concerned about protecting young ears or eyes from the facts of life. Or really anything.

Nevertheless, Alice knows that before the precipice of high school is the perfect time to have another chat about sex with her daughters. With all the pressure to be the “Cool Girl,” girls hear so many lies these days.

“You’ll want to wait for marriage, like your mother.” Alice intones with all seriousness. She taps the excess polish off the brush before applying a second coat of A Princess’ Rule to Polly’s toes.

Betty is carefully dabbing the hydrating banana-honey mask to her cheeks as she nods in agreement, but Polly scowls and exclaims, “You can’t expect us to believe that you never before you and Dad married like a decade after you started dating each other.” Polly has been growing increasingly defiant these last months, and when she scowls like that she reminds her mother of her sister. And, the recollection doesn’t bring out the best in Alice.

Yet, Alice desperately wants to raise girls who unlike herself have more self-respect than to “pop their cherry” on the World’s Ugliest Couch. Alice had such abominable role models. Her mother had a new man de jour every few months. Her mother cheered and nearly cried tears of joy when her underage daughter took to the pole to earn her way into the Serpents. Her mother’s only advice regarding F.P. or Hal was to make sure to “get hers” before they both left her. 

Alice wants to be a role model. Alice needs to be a role model who can stand for something for her girls. “Your father was a gentleman.” Alice says glaring at her oldest, daring her daughter to naysay her.

“What if we don’t want to date a gentleman? What if we want to have some fun?” 

“Pauline Cooper!” Alice has had enough of her bull-headed daughter. “You need to march straight to your room until you can compose yourself enough to enjoy this girl time!” 

Polly stomps up to her room without a backward glance at her mother.

“Spoiled.” “Ungrateful.” “Disagreeable.” These complaints fall from Alice's lips as she packs up her nail kit. However, Alice is fuming more to have something to do or say than from any real outrage. Polly’s questions have Alice’s heart beating a mile a minute. 

Betty turns on the tap behind Alice to wash up, then wraps her arms around her mother pressing her damp face into her back. “Mom… I enjoy girl time.”

Alice pulls herself together with a steadying breath and turns to her youngest. “Thanks, honey. Do you want to watch _Brave_ or _Frozen_?” 

**two.**

“She’s _such_ a bitch.” 

Polly’s exclamation of profanity halts Alice in the hallway. Moments away from barging into Betty’s room to remind her girls that there are no closed doors in Alice's house, not even partially closed doors, Polly’s angry outburst pauses her just outside the door.

“Shhh! Don’t talk like that Polly.”

“Betty, please.” Polly sounds annoyed at her younger sister’s goody-two-shoes ways as if she could easily switch her exasperation from the “she” to Betty. 

“I just don’t need Mom on my back right now after everything that happened today. What if she hears you?”

Alice is stung. Something happened today? 

She hates that about being the mother of two high school girls. She is so sidelined and reduced to this cloak and dagger nonsense. GPS trackers. Reading diary entries. Text message stalking. Listening at doors. She knew her eventual demonization would take place with Betty after her youngest started high school as her estrangement with Polly happened too quickly only two years ago, but this is absurd — today was Betty’s first day of high school!

Alice huddles closer to the door. She not going to let her baby face any of the humiliations of high school by herself. A sister is great, but a mother is better.

“I’m sorry. I- I’m just frustrated because I know Cheryl made that comment about you to get to me.”

“What? Why?”

“Jason and I made things official over the summer. Cheryl isn’t happy. She doesn’t think I’m good for Jason… as if it’s her business.”

“Official? What does that mean?” 

Alice has heard enough. She doesn’t want to hear Polly’s response. 

She slams open the door, pretending she hadn’t heard a thing.

“Do either of you pay rent? Why is this door not open?” 

Both girls look at their mother with alarm at first, but smooth their expressions into a mix of annoyance and contrition. 

“Sorry, Mom.” Betty says. “We were talking over extracurriculars. I’m thinking of joining the Blue and Gold.” 

“That’s an excellent idea, Betty.” Alice chirps. “A girl needs activities to keep her occupied otherwise she can fall into a bad crowd. What are you doing with your time this year, Pauline?” 

**one.**

Alice sits in her car outside the Whyte Wyrm, caught. 

Polly is at the Sister’s of Quiet Mercy. Her baby. Like mother, like daughter. Everything Alice has built, everything she’s fought for is broken into tiny pieces that may never come together again.

Alice couldn’t face Hal after those men dragged Polly away shrieking and spewing the most hateful words at her parents. Alice ran right towards the only place she could think of, the only home she’d ever known. The one place she ran far, far away from decades ago.

But she can’t go in there. 

A Serpent may never shed its skin, but Alice Cooper isn’t a Serpent. Alice Smith was a Serpent. Alice Cooper is the antithesis of a Serpent. Alice has worked damn hard for over twenty years to make that the central truth of her life. But it isn’t true. How do you erase yourself so completely that there isn’t even a faint shadow of your former self? 

She can’t. Polly’s rebellion, her rage. Betty’s self-determination, her ease with flipping from that perfect Cooper girl archetype to someone more steely and dark. That’s all ballsy Alice Smith. Alice Cooper can’t erase Alice Smith. She’s white-washed and layered over and over and over trying to wallpaper that girl with fairytale rewrites and perfect family portraits, but that half-broken, street smart girl is still there. Alice Smith is still laughing that low ho-hum chuckle behind the rewrites and portraits mocking everything Alice Cooper sacrificed to be Alice Cooper. 

But Alice still can’t go in there. 

Alice pulls herself together. She’s come this far, and as she drives away, she promises herself that she’s not going back now.


End file.
